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Amid red stage curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, Norway's national church issued a formal apology for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“The national church has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, declared this Thursday. “This should never have happened and that is why today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A church service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to follow his apology.

The statement of regret occurred at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 attack that took two lives and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to no less than 30 years behind bars for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. Back in the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, ranking as the second globally to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

During 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and same-sex couples were permitted to marry in church since 2017. During 2023, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday elicited varied responses. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, described it as “an important reparation” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

For Stephen Adom, the director of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but had come “overdue for individuals who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts since the church viewed the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Globally, a few churches have sought to make amends for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, England's church expressed regret for what it described as “shameful” actions, although it still declines to permit gay marriages in church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland in the past year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but stayed firm in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church based in Canada offered an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, describing it as a reaffirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We caused pain to people in place of fostering completeness. We are sorry.”